Migration of primordial germ cells during late embryogenesis of pikeperch Sander lucioperca relative to blastomere transplantation

Abstract

Pikeperch Sander lucioperca is a valuable fish in Europe, and basic information about its embryonic development, especially primordial germ cell (PGC) migration, is important for use in biotechnology. We categorized pikeperch embryonic development into six stages as in other fish species: zygote, cleavage, blastula, gastrula, segmentation, and hatching and described PGC migration. PGCs were visualized by injection of synthesized green fluorescent protein (GFP) within the 3'untranslated region (UTR) mRNA of nanos3. GFP-positive PGCs appeared in all embryos at approximately 100% epiboly. Time-lapse imaging revealed the PGC migration pattern from their initial appearance to location at the gonadal ridge. We conducted blastomere transplantation (BT) at the blastula stage. Donor embryos were labelled with GFP-nos3 3'UTR mRNA and tetramethylrhodamine dextran to label PGCs and somatic cells, respectively. Twelve BT chimeras were produced, with eight surviving to hatching. All exhibited donor-derived somatic cells in the developing body. The PGCs from donor embryos were observed to migrate towards the gonad region of the host embryos. Our results indicated that BT can be successfully applied in pikeperch, and these findings may be useful to produce germline chimeras in percids.

Keywords

• germ cell transplantation
• germ cell migration
• germ-line chimera
• nanos
• primordial germ cell visualization